Sunday, September 30, 2012

Another week gone by so fast! Really, where did the time go? The weekend seemed to disappear in a nano second, but even though it was busy, it was a lot of fun. I just didn't get to unwind like I usually do though. We went out for a lovely lunch to meet some visiting cousins and E had a whale of a time. Then on saturday we entertained at home, an old college friend of DH that I was meeting for the first time. A lovely evening going down memory lane!

E's star pillow being sunned, after she had a rough night. Luckily this one has a removable cover and the pillow is machine washable, but her regular pillow isn't. So I opened up the stiches, washed the wool and dried it in the sun.

All set to browse the new Ikea catalog along with a soothing cup of green tea. With the changing season, the throat has been acting up, so taking every opportunity to sit and have a cup of tea.

Morning walk to her school! The weather here in Dubai is now lovely in the mornings, very refreshing.

Some banana bread with oatmeal, which I really liked for it's added texture. And then a dollop of whipped cream, left over from the chocolate cream pie I took for lunch out. Slightly over browned in my oven that doesn't have a thermometer.

Monday, September 24, 2012

A new week. Doing the usual things, but trying to make each day a bit more memorable. Having fun at the little things. Noticing how my little one enjoys going to the market now, to point out her favorite things, to touch and smell them. And the friendly staff who always smile at her and say hello so sweetly.
Doesn't it get boring sometimes, doing the same thing over and over again. It does for me, and all I try to do is to remember the fun things we did and haze out the not-so-nice ones.

A little slice of cake.....can't remember what it was called, a Blueberry something....from one of our favorite little places, The Lime Tree Cafe. And that's E pointing to it and soon after reaching for it!

Quite time in the afternoon with a cup of green tea and the leftover flowers from my welcome back home bouquet.

E running with glee towards the lake. We love having this promenade around the lake where she can run around without worry of cars. Only delivery cycles and security segways are allowed on the promenade.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Last month we had a lovely rainy day picnic when I was home for a holiday. It's the monsoon season after all! It was an impromptu picnic at the farm of old family friends who invited us over. The day started off as overcast, but it started raining as we left home but it was a nice steady drizzle, not a downpour. We all sat in the gazebo, eating eggs and sausages, yes did I mention it was a breakfast picnic, then graduating to beer! Well, that's the sign of a good vacation isn't it, drinking beer at 1045 in the morning! I really enjoyed catching up with old friends, seeing the kids that I first saw as newborns, now quite grown up, almost teenagers!

On our way, driving to our picnic in the rain!

Surrounded by fields of corn and fruit trees.

An umbrella hanging on the gazebo. This is one of the car umbrella's so gets to travel with us where ever we go!

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What's up with the Blogger interface? The photos show up as broken icons, and they keep moving around and suddenly my 3 photos become 4 and they just never stay in one place? I'm not bothering to enlarge the photos, since I've had to redo this post 4 times now just to get it to look decently aligned.

Living in a place where one uses the AC almost the entire year, makes me really miss the change of seasons. For us, it's just hot, hotter, hot and humid, hotter and humider, ok not so hot anymore, ah quite cool, and that's it! Even though it does cool down in the winters, enough for even sweaters in the evenings, one can't really keep the windows open since we live in a highrise. So the solution is to keep the AC on, which negates any kind of temperature change outside the window. I find it boring to use a comforter all year round. I'd love to switch to a heavier comforter for the winter, maybe something cozier in flannel, maybe some rustic bedding to make it feel like we're still in New England. Now that would be quite a stretch of imaginations, right!

It is isn't it! These days my daughter is so into music. Actually, she's always loved music and beats of any kinds, she connects to it immediately. As all parents do, I too wonder what she will be when she grows up, and I wonder if it will be related to music. I would love it to be. It seems to give her so much joy and us as well. So maybe things like hot rodded humbucker sets, Invader pickups, distortion humbucker set and so on will be in her future! Whoa, I thought, these are all really technical, but then one goes beyond them to see how they create music and these seymour duncan pickups musicians friend are about creating beautiful music. I always wanted to learn guitar, and well piano too, but never got started on the former and gave up after a couple of months on the latter, so it would be great to see her get familiar with things like seymour duncan pickups and stuff like that!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Well, I'm back home! I had a good break, a very hectic break, but it's always good to go home for a while, hectic or not. I really enjoyed being home during the monsoons, even though it picked up only towards the end. It was wonderful to wake up to the sound of gentle rain outside my window, yes, the weather was nice enough to leave the windows open! I loved it. Simply loved not having to use the AC all the time. I slept so well, so deeply, using just a sheet like we used to when we were kids. Out here in Dubai, we have the AC on all through the year, so use a comforter all year round, making me miss the change of seasons.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

I'd love to be a great diy person, but sadly I'm not. I'd love to be able to buy furniture from Ikea and put it together myself, but the one time I've done that, I've messed it up, to the point that it's worthless. And so the lowest and largest drawer of a filing cabinet is stuck, it will not open more than a few inches and so it has been unused since we bought it 5 years back. I gladly fork over the extra cash for delivery and installation to the Ikea chaps, even though they keep increasing the minimum spend as well as the installation costs. So sadly, I'm not going to need to know what plastic lobed knobs are used for. I just leave it for the experts to know and fix, that's it!

Well, here I am, back after ages. It's been a really hectic time and it was good to be completely offline for a while. It's hard to stay completely disconnected with ones email, but I had no time to surf or read online at all, but I was completely fine with that. On other trips, after a while, I itch to be back online, but this time around, I relished my free time by spending it with actual people, instead of listening half heartedly and pecking away constantly at the computer.
E loved being at home and meeting so many more people on a daily basis. I just doesn't happen out here, living by ourselves, no matter how hard we try. Her highpoint of the trip was being able to go out in the car every single day. She would start of in the morning itself, saying car, car, car, and for her new fave snack croissants. She simply adores them, and I have to literally hide them from her, else she can go on and on eating them. She loves cars and recognizes her nana's car easily! Do I see custom car seat covers and all that in her future? I wonder if she'll always be this fond of cars when she grows up!
ps: she loves to call taxi's out here in dxb, I really have to watch out for her. One minute, we're walking down the street, and the next, she's hailed a taxi so sweetly!

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About Me

I am a writer and researcher specializing in retail and travel, who loves to travel, be creative, take photographs, read and solve puzzles, in essence a curious mind. I live in Dubai with my husband and baby girl, who is the absolute joy of our lives.